Hey 🤘🤘!

In this week’s newsletter, I am looking into:

• A clever and confident way Deel deals with competitors

• Leveraging Barbie’s huge brand play with newsjacking

• 3 sneaky newsjacking examples

Lezzgo!

Dejan - @dgajsek

How Deel Deals with Competition

Remote work combined with the normalization of working-from-home (WFH) lifestyle has (thank goodness) become a standard.

If you’re a company and want to hire the top skilled talent than benefits such as such as remote (or WFH) is one of the conditions to get a person you want to join your team.

This normalization of remote work lead to a common problem. Since your workers are spread out worldwide, you’ve got to pay them in the currency and manner that is consisted with country or citizenship of a remote employee or contractor.

This massive HR issue led to some amazing business opportunities. Companies like Deel, OysterHR, and Muliplier are a multi-million dollar business that solely exists by removing the pain and confusing of employee/contractor compensation.

And there are also incumbents like Gusto or ADP who are adapting to the relatively new way of work.

It’s a massive business and the fight for market share is fierce.

Deel has been doing it really well with personalization of competitive landing pages.

Why it works:

Speed to Compete Content

As soon as you get on the Deel’s main page, you get to pick your next destination.

Their navigation is simple and effective.

Want to see how they position themselves against competitors?

Hover over “Why Deel” and click on “Compare competitors”. It’s laid out right there. One hover over + one click.

If you’re looking for an HR remote working position and you’re already in comparison mode, you will appreciate the speed to relevant content.

Contextual landing pages per competitor

If you like one thing, it’s specificity. A lot of companies say they are the best by comparing features or even worse, their biggest value proposition is that they are marginally less expensive.

Weak sauce!

Deel does it differently.

They have a landing page with different messaging for 6 of their biggest competitors.

And it’s not about feature comparison repeated x-times for each competitor.

That’s lazy competitive intel.

It’s specific copy paired with specific strengths and weakness against key value propositions.

Along with “why we win” element, Deel shares a visual for prospects so they can see and imagine the benefit right there and then.

Quick access to content for sales reps

This research and accessibility gives Deel’s sales reps quick opportunity to share specific landers with the prospect immediately.

And I have no doubt, they have tons of enablement collateral and success stories. (I’d love to see their battlecards 🤤 ).

In summary:

1. The competitive comparison is accessible in one hover & click from the website

2. The comparison landing pages are personalized and specific for (or against) each competitor

3. The research and accessibility gives Deel’s sales reps quick opportunity to share specific landers with the prospect immediately

Deel’s competitve team invested in research. The landing pages are just a tip of the iceberg. Their sales teams are armed with battlecards, objection crushing talk tracks, and quick links to successful case studies.

How do you combat against it?

Looks like Deel is steamrolling competitor but just like in every video game boss fight - there's a weakness.

What you don’t do is trying to compete on the price unless your target audience are smaller companies who are price sensitive.

• First thing to do would be finding customers who switched from Deel to you. Block off some time and interview them. Find out exactly what made them switch and see if other customers who jump from Deel ship share the same opinion.

• Secondly, ask your sales reps, who have heard prospects contemplating choosing their provider. They are doing their homework since they won’t be switching after their find their provider.

• Lastly, check what’s available online. One quick look at G2 reviews are showing that Deel’s customer support isn’t the best. If yours is - use that as a “why we win” element.

Barbiecore Madness 🤘🤘

Marketers are foaming around their mouths on how insanely good Barbie campaign was.

And it truly was spectacular. They spared no expense and it’s freaking awesome to see what $150M of marketing budget can produce.

The marketing team at Barbie did all sorts of advertising from digital, out-of-home, PRs, interviews, branding crossovers with Doctor Who and genius AirBnB Malibu Dreamhouse.

My absolute favorite — cross-promotions!

Who doesn’t want to have a little bit of that sweet synergy that brings business to both parties.

Mattel (who owns Barbie trademark) signed licensing deals with more than 100 brans.

Here are few examples:

• Burger King Brazil launched Pink Burger and Barbie Shake

• Progressive Insurance ad commercial

• Bunch of apparel companies (Gap, Forever 21, MeUndies)

• AirBnB Barbie Mansion

• Joybird’s Barbie-themed furniture

• Crocs

• Pinkberry’s Froyo

• Fossil Luxury leather goods purse - Barbie Collection

• Homesick $44 candles (that smells like matriarchy)

• NYX and Truly Skincare

• Ruggable Barbie Rugs

• Gaming Console Xbox designed as Barbie’s Dreamhouse

• Swoon’s Pink Lemonade

• Impala’s Neon and Pink Rollerblades (of course!)

• Uno Cards

These were all carefully planned and executed campaigns with Barbie’s marketing team.

But if you’re not part of the licensing agreements or cross-promos you can still use the attention to rub against you. You use the event and will yourself into the hype mix as a rogue element.

You can do Newsjacking!

Heineken

With the movie being all about Barbie, Heineken used the hype to focus on Ken’s.

Because why not. Why men shouldn’t go and party.

Sponsored Post

3 Clever and Sneaky Newsjacking Examples

Newsjacking is dope.

Imagine somoene dropping a ton of resources into a campaign and you as a shrewd and creative human use the slipstream of that massive effort and use it for your product or message.

These recent 5 are my favorite:

Peloton and Aviation American Gin

In 2019, Peloton launched a commercial where a husband gives his wife a Peloton for Christmas.

Even in 2019, that shit didn’t fly wheel because of the shifted gender norms. The ad became a massive Internet meme.

Shortly after the campaign, Ryan Reynolds (most known as an actor in Deadpool) cast Monica Ruiz (the same person in the “Peloton Wife” commercial) in an Aviation American Gin commercial.

The whole ad was written to appear as a sequel to the Peloton.

U.S Elections & Calm

Elections are stressful for people.

Every four years, we vote for one person that is going to represent the country we live in and call the shots.

The meditation app Calm, used several 30-seconds ads leading up to the Election Night with a message “make the world happier and healthier.” This contrast impressed the viewers and offered a promise of relaxation against the feeling of anxiety.

GIllete’s Toxic Masculinity and Egard Watches

Gillete’s newsjacking of #MeeToo movement gain massive attention and generally negative feedback online. The YouTube Likes and Dislikes ratio on the Guardian Channel showed 1 : 2 in favor of dislikes.

In most marketing circles the ad is lauded as great example of newsjacking, however in some research it cost the company up to $8B of lost revenue since it was attacking their own buyers.

Something similar happened with Bud Light and their parent company Anheiser Busch. When they politicized their ad campaign, the sales dropped by more than 20% which which cost them first place as the most sold beer in the United States.

Their rival brands, Yeungling Lager, Coors Light, and Miller Light saw sales surges by 25%, 21.6%, and 16.9% respectively.

In response to an ad, the relatively unknown company Egard Watches, filmed an ad in favor of healthy masculinity.

The ad attracted millions of views and a massive spike on Egards website. Since then, Egard has been using newsjacking as one of the main tactics for capturing attention.

Spicy Memes

That’s it. Have a wonderful week!

🤘🤘

d.

Lay it On Me

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